


Early Morning, Again

by Circadienne



Category: Roger Zelazny - Chronicles of Amber series
Genre: Gen, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2007, recipient:Serenade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-09
Updated: 2010-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-06 01:33:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Circadienne/pseuds/Circadienne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin and Luke go running in Berkeley one morning, sometime between the first and second Amber series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Early Morning, Again

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to Cofax for beta.

I wiped my hand on my jogging shorts and rang the bell. Merle's apartment building had a box by the door, with the tenants' surnames impressed into little strips of plastic tape stuck up next to each of the buttons. Merle's sticker had disappeared from the box the week after he'd moved in, leaving a tacky spot where the adhesive had come away from the plastic. That's the kind of guy he is. If "2B" hadn't been engraved next to the button, and therefore unremovable, he'd probably have taken that off, too.

A minute later, I heard him coming down the stairs. It was one of these older apartment houses south of campus, kind of ramshackle, white stucco and little bits of Spanish tile stuck to the edges of the roof, remodeled badly so the rooms were all funny shapes. I didn't like it much, but he said the rent was cheap, it had wood floors and a bay window, and he could rent a parking place in the lot next door. Me, I had a place in a converted bungalow a few blocks away. I spent more than he did, sure, and I had to park on the street, but I had one common wall to his four. I like my privacy; I was happy to pay a little extra.

Merle pushed the door open and I stepped back out of the vestibule to give him room. He's big, nearly as big as I am, and the space was too small for both of us. He had on a t-shirt from a 10K we'd run the year before. He beat me by fourteen seconds. He wears that shirt a lot.

"Ready?" I asked.

He grinned at me. "Usually." Then he was past me, starting up the block, and I muttered something vulgar under my breath because I could tell it was going to be one of those mornings.

He went up the hill, then cut over on College and ran through the southeast corner of campus. I caught up with him as he came down the stairs to one of the little bridges over the creek, and passed him in front of the chemistry building. He'd made it up almost even with me again as we passed the men's dorm where we'd spent our freshman year, and so I turned my head to say, "Hey, remember that girl Jodie?"

"You mean the Jodie I brought to the fencing team banquet two weeks ago?" He hadn't even broken a sweat yet, the bastard.

I nodded. "Yeah, that's the one."

"What about her?"

"Does it bother you when she screams?"

"When she -- Luke!"

I'd pulled away again while he was thinking about it. We were coming around the back side of the football stadium, and the eucalyptus leaves on the roadside crunched under my feet. That smell always reminds me of my mother's workroom: she used to have the servants use a cleaner with eucalyptol in it, to mask the scents of some of her nastier experiments. I don't have what you'd call positive associations.

Merle was definitely sweating when he caught up again, and he panted a little as he said, "Screams what?"

It was only fair that he'd be getting tired; we were running uphill, after all. I just laughed and kept going. The canyon's a nice place for a run, early in the morning, shady and cool, the road lined with oak trees and big redwoods. As long as the physicists don't mow you down on their way to work. One of them bombed past in a big black diesel sedan with a license plate that said RADIATN and Merle dropped back behind me, single file, so as to present a smaller target.

"Luke," he said again, still behind me, starting to sound irritated, "what have you done with my girlfriend?"

"Oh, she's your girlfriend now, is she?" I turned my head just enough that he could see me smile, then sped up again. We passed the swimming pool and I had a five or ten foot lead, at least, as I turned down the fire road. Which I wanted to keep, thank you very much. The narrow dirt road was wooded and lonesome and traveled only by joggers and dog-walkers and lost princes, at this hour of the morning, and there was no reason Merle couldn't whack me over the head and stash me in shadow somewhere, if I'd pissed him off badly enough. I grinned, imagining it. "No, I haven't seen Luke in days," he'd say to the officer, "he must be visiting relatives." Hah. But he'd have to catch me, first.

I could hear him behind me, huffing, and I was breathing hard myself, but I kept putting my feet down, one in front of the other, really pumping along now. The road got steeper as it moved up the side of the canyon. I still had a little lead as I broke out onto the ridgeline trail, the view opening up before me, down over the roofs of the city to the bay, shining deep blue as the morning sun edged up over the hills. It is one of the better views I know, if you're the type who likes cities and water and bridges and romantic little bits of fog here and there.

It was all downhill on the way back and we made pretty good time into town. The last four blocks we were matched, step for step, and each of the stoplights turned green as we came up to it. I spared Merle a look when the third one ticked over, just as we came to the crossing, and he smirked at me. Subtle.

We pulled to a stop outside his door, me leaning against the wall of the building and him bent over, both of us sucking in air. After a second I started walking around, shaking one leg and then the other, not wanting to stiffen up. Merle put a hand on the wall and pulled one foot up behind himself, then the other, stretching out his quads.

"So," he said finally, when he'd caught his breath, "you want to explain that little remark?" His left hand was twitching, like he was fiddling with something I couldn't see. He probably was. It's a nervous tic he has. You pay attention to a guy's nervous tics, when you've been trying to kill him for three years.

I met his eyes. "She told me there wasn't anything serious going on between the two of you. And she's cute." I shrugged.

"And you're easy." It was hard to tell if he were annoyed, or amused.

I spread my hands. "Hey, you just say the word, and I'll -- "

He shook his head. "No, don't worry about it." He stretched his arms back behind his head and groaned. "That almost felt like exercise."

I grunted in agreement. "You going to feed me breakfast, or am I on my own?"

"Hell, the way you eat, can I afford your breakfast?"

"Probably not."

He unlocked the door and ushered me in. Really, if we kept this up, I was going to have to call off the vendetta.


End file.
